


The Song of the Wandering Frasers - Deleted Scene

by abreathofsnowandashes



Series: Not Quite Fics [1]
Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Deleted Scene, F/M, The Song of the Wandering Frasers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-22 06:44:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13161432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abreathofsnowandashes/pseuds/abreathofsnowandashes
Summary: A deleted scene from The Song of the Wandering Frasers. Claire sees a ghost. Frank realises he seen one, too.





	The Song of the Wandering Frasers - Deleted Scene

**Author's Note:**

> This was a scene I wrote for The Song of the Wandering Frasers that I ended up taking out. It's set somewhere during chapter 4. I really liked the scene itself but it slowed down the story and introduced something I would never really pursue again so I decided to kill my darling and cut it. I still liked it though so I posted it on Tumblr. I'm posting it here now just so everything is up to date.

She found it by accident, rooting through a pile of things Reggie had kept from the first time she came to the Manse, in 1945. Over the last eighteen years there had been days when she felt like she was losing the shape of Jamie, when his face faded and this features all came together to form an unknown, indistinct man. But in her shaking hand she held an image of him, as clear and certain as the water in a burn; Jamie Fraser, wanted for questioning. His jaw wasn’t quite right but it was him, _dear lord it was him._

“Frank! Frank!” she called, her voice shrill with urgency.

Bree moved beside her. “Mom, what’s wrong? Are you feeling okay?”

“I need Frank, where is he?”

“I’m here! What’s the matter?” he looked around cautiously, unsure what he would be met with.

She held up the wanted sign, “What is this!?” she demanded.

Frank paled at the sight of the image and then stood back to lean against the solid support of the wall.

“When you went missing, I had signs made. That was the fellow I saw outside our bedroom window at Mrs.Baird’s, the night before you went.”

“You thought you’d seen a ghost,” she said in a whisper.

“Did I see one?” he asked, voice low and choked with emotion.

“Yes,” she said softly, “you did.”

Bree looked between her parents, confusion knitting her brow.

“What are you talking about? Who is that?”

“Jamie,” Claire said finally, tears welling at the corners of her eyes. “It’s Jamie.”

“Are you sure?” Bree asked, somehow still dubious after everything.

“I’m certain.” Claire replied.

“What was his ghost doing under your window?”

Claire looked back to the drawing in her hand and couldn’t help the smile that crept across her lips. “He was keeping his promise.”

_I will find you. I promise._

_If it takes two hundred_ years…

Before Bree could question her mother further Frank coughed and the moment was broken.

“Yes, well, I’ve found something, too. Reggie was using it to prop up a table, he didn’t even know he had it.”

Frank pushed himself away from the wall and held a leather bound book out to Claire. She took it from him warily and read the the inscription.

_Jonathan Wolverton Randall_

“Jesus Christ,” she hissed, the book dropping from her hand as if burned by its touch.

“You found his diary?”

Frank nodded, “It would seem so, yes. I haven’t read it, I thought perhaps you might want to. Perhaps it would jog some memory of yours or he may have mentioned something that may be relevant.”

She began to shake her head and stepped back and away from the book. “I can't… I can’t read that.”

Frank was flabbergasted.

“But it may be pertinent. Surely you understand that–”

“I can’t know how he thought about Jamie privately. I can never know that. It’s too… it’s too much.”

Bree reached for the book, “I’ll read it,” but Claire snatched it away from her.

“No!”

Brianna looked at her in surprise.

“No,” she said pointedly, “You can’t know that either.”

“If it is all right with you,” Frank said, taking the book back. “I’ll read it.” 

Claire hesitated a moment and the inclined her head in agreement.

“Very well. But if you find something pertaining to locating Jamie, you will tell me, yes?”

Frank nodded and then left the room, Black Jack Randall’s journal tucked under his arm.

* * *

It was close to ten at night when Frank finally emerged from Reggie’s study. He didn’t even acknowledge Claire when he entered the room but instead moved straight to the drinks cabinet and poured himself a generous glass. “Bloody hell,” he said under his breath.

“I never thought… I never imagined… the things–” he cut himself off and shook his head in disbelief, in _disgust_ , and took another drink.

Claire waited for him to say something but he just stood there, back to her, staring at his drink.

“Did you find anything?” she finally asked softly.

“Apart from the pits of Hell itself? No, there was nothing. Nothing relevant to the search in any case.”

Claire nodded, torn between relief and disappointment.

“I dare say he didn’t much care for you,” Frank said turning to look at her.

“No, I very much doubt he did. I assure you the feeling was entirely mutual.”

Frank snorted in amusement.

“Indeed. Highland Cattle?” he asked, raising a brow.

“I made use of the resources I had at hand,” she said defiantly, chin held high.

He smiled at that, impressed, and took another drink.

“He seemed very certain that he would die at Culloden. He was obsessed with the notion. He wrote incessantly about it.”

“That is because I told him he would,” the bold challenge of her now shining from her eyes. “When he threw me out of Wentworth, I had nothing else to hurt him with. He knew I’d been tried for a witch so I cursed him with the knowledge of the day of his death.”

“It tormented him. For the rest of his days, he didn’t know a moment’s peace because of it.”

Claire put down the papers she was holding in her hand and made sure to look him square in the eye before she spoke.

“Good.”

Frank’s heart stopped dead in his chest.

There she was, the woman of fire and passion he had been searching for. He realised quite suddenly that she had been here all along, living alongside him; just under his wife’s skin. Could see it now, clear as day, in the queenly walk of her, burning behind her eyes, casting a disinterested gaze upon him. Silent but ready for battle, requiring nothing to be drawn out but a cause worth fighting for.

It was a sobering, desolate thought to realise that their marriage had not been deemed worth the effort.

She stood and placed her pile of papers on the coffee table, ready to be picked up in the morning again.

“Goodnight Frank.”

“Goodnight Claire.”


End file.
